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One of defendants convicted in "The Pirate Bay" piracy case has called the guilty verdict the first step in "an epic win" for the site and its users.

Peter Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom were all sentenced to one year in prison and collectively ordered to pay 30 million Swedish crowns, or about $3.58 million, in a closely-watched trial that involved one of the Internet's most notorious sites for linking to illegally-copied works.

All four have reportedly said they'll appeal the decision.

The site runs its own "trackers" of pirated materials, including music, movies and software, that provide a master list of individuals trying to download them using the popular BitTorrent software. The four defendants had been charged with violations of Swedish copyright law and other offenses.

But in a "press conference" conducted via Twitter soon after the verdict was read, Sunde vowed to burn everything he owned before paying anything to the Swedish authorities.

In a statement, the site called the verdict the work of "the dice court," a reference to what Sunde called an essentially random verdict. "So, the dice courts judgement is here. It was lol to read and hear, crazy verdict," the site said alongside a character from the movie "The Karate Kid". "But as in all good movies, the heroes lose in the beginning but have an epic victory in the end anyhow. That's the only thing hollywood ever taught us."

The MPAA took a different view. "We welcome the court's decision today because The Pirate Bay is a source of immense damage to the creative industries in Sweden and internationally,"it said. "This is an important decision for rights-holders, underlining their right to have their creative works protected against illegal exploitation and to be fairly rewarded for their endeavors. This decision will help to support the continued investment in talent and in new online services, and the creation of new film and television shows for enjoyment by audiences around the world."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center agreed. "Today's ruling sends an important signal that online criminals who show such blatant disregard for the rights of others will be fully prosecuted under the law," said Mark Esper, the center's executive vice president, in a statement.

"At a time when workers are losing their jobs in droves, governments need to aggressively protect and enforce the intellectual property rights at home and abroad," Esper added. "We cannot stand idly by as legitimate businesses and workers that rely on their protected ideas for their livelihoods are losing out to organizations like Pirate Bay that don't play by the rules."

According to Sunde, the verdict will be followed by demonstrations in Sweden, organized by representatives of "Piratpartiet," or Sweden's "The Pirate Party," both in Stockholm and Lund. Piratpartiet also plans to stand in the June elections in the EU.

Sunde said that the prosecutor's case had been built on hearsay, rather than direct evidence.

"To boil down what I think is the problem: it's a small elite, they all sit in a room and just talk to each other," Sunde said. "There is this guy and he's telling the next guy and it separates a bit and it separates some more and all of a sudden we're killing small innocent kids and eating the remainders. It's so far out and they actually start believing it, because they say I can heard it from my friend and he s a credible guy, and he can say I heard it from my friend, he's a credible guy."

Sunde said that he had spoken to Warg and Neij, but that "Carl [Lundstorm] I barely know". The Pirate Bay operations are as decentralized as its user base is, he said: "If we're going to be convicted or organized crime, that s stupid. At least convict us of disorganized crime," he said.

Sunde also claimed that he and his cohorts had been working on an online payment scheme, apparently to compensate copyright owners. "The prosecutor tried to make every thing we do into something mystical, something very scary, super criminal, when its like oh, they're actually working on payment methods for online content, that type of stuff."

In one of the two "press conference" videos, Sunde held up a mock IOU for his share of the assessed fine, which is as close as prosecutors are ever going to get to his share, he said. "Even if I had money I would rather burn everything I own and not even give them the final dust from the burning the ashes, not even the ashes," he said.

The Web site with the press conference concludes that the verdict was actually an "epic win" for the site. As the site did, Sunde compared the verdict to "The Karate Kid": "In the beginning there are these bullies who are bullying Daniel-san," he said. "He gets beaten up, and that's wher we're at right now. And at the end we're going to have this epic end where we have this crane [kick] we're going to stand there with a leg  a wooden leg, probably  a bit hurt, but we're going to kick their ass."

Editor's Note:This story was updated at 1:15 PM with a statement from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.